igLoader ready to go (finally).

[Indiepath.T]

Some key snippits from the website.

"igLoader is a cross browser plugin that allows virtually any windows based software to be delivered and operated within the browser window. igLoader is unique in its implementation and simplicity; igLoader is not based on ActiveX technology and, as such, is compatible with browsers such as Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer."

"How easy is it to enable my applications?
Simplicity is the key here. Pack the application files into a .igl archive (we provide details on how to do this) and upload to your website. The plugin will download the .igl archive and will extract the files to a unique directory on the client hard disk, keeping your application directory structure intact! You do not need to pack all files including media into one .exe!"

Want more information? http://www.igloader.com

I welcome all comments and questions. If you have questions about pricing then please contact me via the website as I am not in a position to discuss such matters on a public forum. You may request a quotation here : http://igloader.com/rfq.php

If you are interested in becoming a reference site for igLoader then please contact me via the website to discuss further.

[Emmanuel]

It would be great if you could post a public price for your product, so that we (at least I) could make a buy vs. make decision. For ptk it was easy ($215 for an unlimited license, vs. weeks of work to get it half right).

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[Anlino]

Firefox crashes for me when i try. Version 1.5

[Indiepath.T]

Anlino, what spec is your machine? What is your OS?

This has been extensively tested on Win98, XP and Win2K with IE, Opera and all available versions of Firefox.

[Anlino]

OS: Windows XP SP2

Processor: 2,4 GHz Intel Pentium 4

Harddrive: 120 Gb

Ram: 512 Mb

Direct X 9.0c installed.


It can have something to do with the Quality Feedback thingy from Mozilla, who pops up each time one of the games launch.

[Indiepath.T]

It can have something to do with the Quality Feedback thingy from Mozilla, who pops up each time one of the games launch.
So the games do download and launch? when do you get the error? minutes, seconds after the launch?

[Anlino]

I have downloaded the plugin earlier, but when i am going to play, this feedback thing pops up, and the same second, a message tells me that firefox.exe needs to shut down.

[Indiepath.T]

Perhaps you have an older version of the plugin installed? What exactly does the error say?

Thanks

[Anlino]

"firefox.exe have encountered a problem and needs to close." Freely translated from Swedish, that is, but you probably have encountered the error one or two times youself, so i'll think you recognize it.

[KGodwin]

I've got the same problem Anlino has with Firefox, it runs fine in Internet Explorer tho.

Windows XP
2.4 Ghz
512MB Ram
32MB ATI Radeon
DirectX 9.0

[Indiepath.T]

You are running Firefox 1.5 also? 1.5 is fine on our test rigs ?!?

[KGodwin]

You are running Firefox 1.5 also? 1.5 is fine on our test rigs ?!?

I don't know what to tell you I'm afraid. Ya its 1.5, I'll uninstall and install 1.0.7 if I can find an installer and see if that works. =)

[KGodwin]

It works fine with 1.0.7 =0

But please, please allow us to change the install directory. =)

[Robert Cummings]

Works fine here despite the missing plugins message being still present at the top throughout the experience.

Firefox 1.5

[Indiepath.T]

It works fine with 1.0.7 =0

But please, please allow us to change the install directory. =)
No can do I'm afraid, the plugin needs to be installed into the >Mozilla Firefox>plugins directory. Firefox does not look at the registry for plugin location, it looks in the local directory.

[luggage]

Doesn't work here. Using Win XP SP2 and Avant.

"Windows has blocked this software because it can't verify the publisher"

Name: igLoader.CAB
Publisher: unknown publisher

It just leaves you with the above message and an OK box.

I'd rather see a public price on this as well. As I've said in another thread, I'm not keen on all this email us for a quote business. I can just about cope with it if it requires a lot of actual work from the party providing the quote but if it's just a bit of software... I don't expect Bill Gates should pay more for his TV just because he has more cash.

Just out of interest you say it's not based on ActiveX yet the instructions on the page (before it failed) said to allow it to install an ActiveX component. Have I misunderstood? I was hoping if it wasn't based on ActiveX it wouldn't have all those instructions and boxes to click on.

cheers

[Indiepath.T]

Hi Luggage, you must have got the file at the exact moment I wrongly uploaded the unsigned version of the loader. The signed version is up now.

There are public prices for SMB on the website : http://www.igloader.com/t_model.php

The plugin is not based on ActiveX but since Microsoft removed support for Mozilla plugins after IE5.5 an small ActiveX control is required to launch the plugin on an IE page.

[luggage]

Good work on that!

Typical I got it at the wrong moment! Just tried it again and it works fine. Nice job!

[KGodwin]

No can do I'm afraid, the plugin needs to be installed into the >Mozilla Firefox>plugins directory. Firefox does not look at the registry for plugin location, it looks in the local directory.

The reason I bring it up is there are people who do not install in the default directory and I doubt they would take the extra effort to copy the file to the plugin directory after it gets installed. But hey, I am a lazy end user when it comes to testing other people's things. Anyway, good luck with igLoader. =)

[Indiepath.T]

The reason I bring it up is there are people who do not install in the default directory and I doubt they would take the extra effort to copy the file to the plugin directory after it gets installed. But hey, I am a lazy end user when it comes to testing other people's things. Anyway, good luck with igLoader. =)
I agree, that is why the installer looks at the registry for the Mozilla Firefox Path and installs the plugin there, and that is why you can not change the install path. I did not make that clear in my previous post, apologies.

[BinaryMoon]

Ooh - just thought of something. What happens if the user doesn't have firefox installed? If you have Firefox installed there's no need for an IE plugin, but if you use IE only the plugin will have nowhere to live?

Anyway - I think it's cool. I'm sure I'll use it on at least a couple of my games :)

[Huge]

Out of interest, what's to stop someone installing spyware, rather than a game ? ie, do you effectly vouch for all the programs that use your plugin ?
Or is there some kind of "do you trust this site" style warning ?

[Indiepath.T]

Ooh - just thought of something. What happens if the user doesn't have firefox installed? If you have Firefox installed there's no need for an IE plugin, but if you use IE only the plugin will have nowhere to live?

Anyway - I think it's cool. I'm sure I'll use it on at least a couple of my games :)
The installer will know what to do if Firefox is not present.

Out of interest, what's to stop someone installing spyware, rather than a game ? ie, do you effectly vouch for all the programs that use your plugin ?
Or is there some kind of "do you trust this site" style warning ?
When you purchase a license for a game you are given a license key, the key is unique to every game. The loader will only function if the correct key is present on the server. If a licensed user decided to include spyware in their application then I can do nothing about that, it would be installed with or without igLoader.

The bottom line is.... If the control is not digitally signed then don't download it.

[Indiepath.T]

Update :

- Encryption of files to prevent launching without the plugin.
- Versioning now implemented - if you include the version tag in the HTML the loader will check this against the installed application (if any) if they do not match then a new version of the application is installed from the server.
- Option to flag the archive files non protected, the plugin will not try to decrypt the files if this flag is set to "0". If you do not include the protected tag in the HTML the plugin will assume the files are protected.
- Increased Decryption Speed
- Custom images, position, size and scale for loader background and "loadbar". Specified by HTML tags - could be used for product advertising etc.
- Full package includes Javascript for automatic prompting of plugin installation or update requirements.

[princec]

How's it get an HWND? I was just wondering how easy it'd be to put one of my games in there.

Cas :)

[Indiepath.T]

Hi Cas,

It finds the HWND by enumerating all windows and comparing certain process specific information. Since igLoader created the process it will find your window one way or another. It does not use the EnumWindows command, it's a lot more reliable than that :)

I'm a bit of an expert at preparing applications for it now, I can have one wrapped and on the web within 10 mins - but then I know this stuff inside out. And now that you don't need access to the application source code to make it "igLoader Ready" you can pretty much deliver anything - full screen as well :D

Tim.

[princec]

Gawaaan then, tell me how to get Ultratron in a web page :)

BTW, doesn't seem to work in Opera...?

Cas :)

[Indiepath.T]

Hi Cas,

Opera seems to have an issue with updating the plugin window, some times it shows the loader screens, other times it does not. It does actually work but you may not get a visual indication of the loading process.

Tim.

PS. I'm downloading ultratron now, I'll check it out.

[Indiepath.T]

Yeah Ultratron works, the game could to with some tweaking so that it's more appealing as a browser game. At the moment the igLoader archive is about 7MB, it would be nice to get this down to maybe 50% of that, and perhaps make the game window smaller. I also noticed that Ultratron reports an error when next run if not shut down properly. The plugin shuts the applications by sending WM_CLOSE, if that fails then it terminates the process. This could cause some issues with your tracking mechanisms.

I've PM you a link to the example.

Image : Ultratron in Firefox (http://igloader.com/stuff/ultratron.jpg)

[princec]

Wow. This is pretty nifty. (Still can't get it to work in Opera 8.5 though.)

Now the funny thing is, Ultratron was designed to be an applet... so it's got a bunch of wee flags in it that let me scale it back down to its native size etc etc. I will do some tweaking.

I think you have a sale...

Cas :)

[Indiepath.T]

Nice one Cas, tbh I thought this was a bit of a windup. I am aware that you made this in Java and I could not figure why you would not devlier it as an applet, maybe it's all your lightwieght lib stuff.

Can the game window be dynamically resized? I ask this becuase I just made a proof of concept for someone where they want to resize the plugin window depending on the client screen resolution - it works quite nicely.

[princec]

It could be dynamically resized no problem.

I just tried it on my wife's laptop, which is pretty similar to mine, and for some reason the Ultratron window popped up but remained blank. I refreshed the page, it moans that Ultratron wasn't shut down, then the game appears properly - again, in a window...

We might need to talk a bit how the magic works because we might have to make a couple of tweaks to the Lightweight Java Game Library to ensure proper compatibility.

I was also thinking it'd be extremely nice if you could have a parameter in the plugin that checked for hardware-assisted OpenGL before the archive is downloaded and takes the user to some URL to explain what's wrong.

Now you might be wondering "he's used Java so why use this crazy thing?" but the reasons are long and twisted. But it comes down to this: on Windows, there are a plethora of virtual machines installed on PCs, ranging from MSVM up to Java 6.0 betas, and actually ensuring that one that works is available and properly integrated into the browser and enabled means that a large number of applets just don't work at all. So embedding the whole VM as I do gets around that problem, and distributing it using igLoader gets it onto a webpage easily. Neat solution :)

Cas :)

[Indiepath.T]

It could be dynamically resized no problem.

I just tried it on my wife's laptop, which is pretty similar to mine, and for some reason the Ultratron window popped up but remained blank. I refreshed the page, it moans that Ultratron wasn't shut down, then the game appears properly - again, in a window...

We might need to talk a bit how the magic works because we might have to make a couple of tweaks to the Lightweight Java Game Library to ensure proper compatibility. I had the same issue on one of my test machines, the screen popped up and did not update. When I clicked on the black page the application came to life. I also noticed that when the game window looses focus you don't appear to do any screen updates, I think this is the reason for the black screen (I may be able to provide a fix for this from my end). The popup error causes a problem for the loader, as it's the first window generated by the application the loader thinks that it is the window to embed - you probably noticed that. When you click okay it thinks it's already embedded the stuff and hence the game runs as normal, not in the webpage.



I was also thinking it'd be extremely nice if you could have a parameter in the plugin that checked for hardware-assisted OpenGL before the archive is downloaded and takes the user to some URL to explain what's wrong. Possible, igLoader is not just games and as such I don't want to bloat the plugin by having to include additional librarys for checking compatibility - nice idea though, I will investigate it further and see if this can be done cheaply using the windows API.

Now you might be wondering "he's used Java so why use this crazy thing?" but the reasons are long and twisted. But it comes down to this: on Windows, there are a plethora of virtual machines installed on PCs, ranging from MSVM up to Java 6.0 betas, and actually ensuring that one that works is available and properly integrated into the browser and enabled means that a large number of applets just don't work at all. So embedding the whole VM as I do gets around that problem, and distributing it using igLoader gets it onto a webpage easily. Neat solution :)

Cas :)

you can email me : tim at@at igloader dot.dot com

[Indiepath.T]

Update: Re-install and now works on Opera.

[princec]

Still the same on Opera here. Also, clicking on the "missing plugin" box downloads a Firefox plugin which doesn't work in Opera either.

Also! Ultratron displays a messagebox if it shuts down incorrectly before it opens the main window and igLoader incorrectly intercepts this (displays it pretty weirldy too). Perhaps you can prevent it from intercepting dialog boxes and wait for frame windows?

Cas :)

[Indiepath.T]

Cas, is npigl.dll in the "Opera/Program/Plugins" Directory?

With regard to the message box, igLoader waits until the application reports that it has initialised and requires user input, using a function of the Windows API, before it attempts to grab the handle. The Windows API considers the MessageBox to be signal that the application is initialised and ready. I have no way of validating that.

Does the messagebox serve any purpose? can it be removed? I'm sure the user is not too concerned about the game shutting down incorrectly.

Other users reported Opera issues, the new build of the installer sorted the problems for them. Image (http://igloader.com/stuff/opera.jpg)

[princec]

I can suppress the messagebox specially I suppose.
My Opera install directory is Program Files/Opera7 (anachronistic)... so yes, I've got an Opera/Program/Plugins directory now, but of course, it's an orphan ;) Perhaps you can check the registry for the right install dir?

Cas :)

[Indiepath.T]

I can suppress the messagebox specially I suppose.
My Opera install directory is Program Files/Opera7 (anachronistic)... so yes, I've got an Opera/Program/Plugins directory now, but of course, it's an orphan ;) Perhaps you can check the registry for the right install dir?

Cas :)
The installer does get the path from the registry so I'm not really sure why it's creating a different path. I'll investigate further.

[princec]

I think you've got the wrong reg key. You want this one:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Opera Software/Plugin Path

which on my machine contains:

C:\Program Files\Opera7\Program\Plugins

Cas :)

[Indiepath.T]

That key does not exist with Opera 8.5, infact there is no reference to the Opera install directory! so my Installer was already flawed and defaulting to program files/opera/program/plugins. I can't find any registry keys relating the the opera install directory!

[steve bisson]

It ran flawlessly in both I.E and Mozilla. Extremly well done ! the loading time was almost non-existant. The games played just as well as the original, no slowdown or glitchs whatsoever. The link that says download as you play is a great idea too.

[Indiepath.T]

Thanks Steve.

igLoader now locates the Opera Plugin Directory correctly, there was a problem with my own Opera Install!

[Indiepath.T]

Update :

- Loader checks license server to see if license has been invalidated. If invalid then loader shuts down. There is a failsafe mechanism - Licensed applications will never be shutdown incorrectly.

[Indiepath.T]

Update:

- Fixed issues with Opera Compatibility.
- Tweaked Versioning system.

[Indiepath.T]

- Cross browser Install Framework Completed. Supports all browsers and provides a simple and intuitive method of end-user plugin installation. Automatic checking of installed versions and redirection to downloads if necessary.

[Indiepath.T]

Cross browser "plugin loader" framework has gone live on Cloverleafgames.com, please have a look if you have a moment. The install process is now consistent across all browser technologies.

http://cloverleafgames.com/webbed.php

Thanks, Tim.

[simonh]

Your licensing page is utterly confusing. Can't you just have a simple price list?

Edit - it's OK, I was looking at the enterprise page with the bewildering graphs. The SMB (whatever they are) page is more what I had in mind.

Your loader seems to work nicely, although after I installed the plug-in, the game wouldn't work - I had to close the window and start it again.

[Indiepath.T]

New release due this week.

- igLoader is now self-updating - it will prompt user and redirect to update page (you will no longer have to update your HTML to serve the latest version).
- Switching between windowed and fullscreen fixed
- Application to Plugin Communication - Request URL, Post URL and MailTo